Main Ideas And Theme Of Nancy's Paper example essay topic

Plagiarism Part I: Relevant Important Term: Plagiarizing The english dictionary states several definitions of the word Plagiarize: 1) To steal or purloin from the writings of another; to appropriate without due acknowledgement (the ideas or expressions of another). 2) Take without referencing from someone else's writing or speech; of intellectual property 3) To put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of another. The definition in the dictionary corresponds accurately with what I had defined for plagiarism. According to the definition, you do not commit plagiarism by simply using another person's idea or writing but it occurs only when you do not give acknowledgement or reference of where you acquired the information. There is a fine line between using another person's idea legally and illegally. The only difference between the two is whether or not you give credit to where you got your information.

Plagiarizing is a crime and students may be failed in school or even expelled for committing plagiarism; On the other hand, with proper citation, incorporating other's ideas for the purpose of broadening our own knowledge as well as fulfilling requirements in projects such as research papers can be a great asset. Also, according to the third definition, you cannot turn in something that is mostly or entirely composed of someone else's work and call it your own simply because you cited it. You cannot do this because As long as we are careful in giving credit to where it belongs, we can avoid plagiarism while strengthening our own writing. Part II: Used correctly in situation or not The following is the situation at hand: Nancy has a paper due tomorrow morning.

She has written a very rough, undeveloped draft. Last semester Nancy's roommate, Sharon, wrote a paper on the very same topic. Sharon gives Nancy the paper and tells her to 'take as much of it as you want. ' With Sharon's permission and help, Nancy uses Sharon's paper to develop her own.

Is Nancy guilty of 'plagiarizing'? The question of whether or not Nancy is guilty of plagiarizing is not a yes or no answer. These are the facts: Nancy does not have a very good first draft, Sharon gave Nancy permission to use her paper, Nancy developed a final paper using Sharon's paper. There are several questions that need to be asked. Sharon tells Nancy she can 'take as much of it as you want' but how much of Sharon's paper did Nancy actually take? Nancy 'developed her own' paper but if she used a considerable amount of Sharon's paper, did she really develop her own or use Sharon's ideas and called it her own?

While using information provided from Sharon's paper, did Nancy cite where she got the information? With the information given, the questions cannot be answered. The answers to those questions would determine whether or not Nancy is guilty of plagiarism. As mentioned before, you cannot take most or all of someone else's ideas and claim them as your own. So, if Nancy took a considerable portion of Sharon's work and made it a majority of her own paper, it would be considered plagiarizing.

The critical part to determining plagiarism is inspecting how the main ideas and theme of Nancy's paper correspond to the main ideas and theme in Sharon's paper. While comparing the two papers, determining how much a 'considerable portion's would become fairly obvious. However, when it is not the case and it is hard to determine, it is up to the teacher or authority to make a decision based on their best judgement. Contrasting, if Nancy molded small bits and pieces in with the bulk of her paper, it would not be plagiarizing. Using another's writing to 'develop' your own paper can and cannot be considered plagiarism. If the person is using most of the ideas by the original writer to 'develop' his or her own paper by using a 'considerable portion', the decision would have to be handled the same way it was handled in the example previously described.

The case where it is all right for a person to use another person's writing to 'develop' his or her own is when he or she uses ideas from the original paper intermitted ly to strengthen her own. 'Developing' can be misused when the writer uses the other's work to 'develop' the main idea. The best way to avoid plagiarism while 'developing' from another's work is to make your own statement and 'develop' your writing by using the other's work to support and strengthen the original idea or statement that you made. The most critical question is whether or not the paper was cited correctly.

All things considered, if any or all of the information Nancy used from Sharon was not cited, the amount of information used by Nancy is irrelevant to whether or not Nancy is guilty of plagiarism. If Nancy correctly cited the information, then the other facts must be considered, but if Nancy did not cite correctly, she would be guilty of plagiarism no questions asked.